· Private foundation
Bickner Family Foundation
Its FY2025 filing reports that it funds preselected organizations and did not take unsolicited requests; check the foundation's own site before ruling it out.
What you funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2017–2025.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2025
- Under $10k13 grants · $46k
- $10k–50k4 grants · $88k
- $50k–250k1 grant · $56k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| DEKALB COUNTY COMMUNITY FOUNDATION | $56,000 |
| HILLCREST COVENANT CHURCH | $48,000 |
| FAMILY SERVICE FOUNDATION | $20,000 |
| SYCAMORE UNITED METHODIST CHURCH | $10,000 |
| Individual grant recipient | $10,000 |
| Individual grant recipient | $5,000 |
| Individual grant recipient | $5,000 |
| NORTH PARK UNIVERSITY | $5,000 |
| UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN KINESIOLOGY | $5,000 |
| UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN | $5,000 |
| EVANGELICAL COVENANT CHURCH | $5,000 |
| UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN WATER POLO | $5,000 |
| HOPE HAVEN | $5,000 |
| Individual grant recipient | $2,000 |
| SILVERLAKE CONSERVITORY OF MUSIC | $1,500 |
Do your dollars go where the need is?
Each grant placed by the hardship in its grantee’s ZIP, then read against the area’s typical level.
Your human-services grants (FY17–25, $41k) land where the poverty rate runs at 13%, against an area that typically sits at 11%. 100% of those dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Most of your grants land in higher-need ZIPs.
Matched: human-services grants are those whose grantee’s IRS cause code is Human Services. Placed by people below the poverty linein the grantee’s ZIP, averaged from the tracts in that ZIP; grantee ZIP can differ from where services are delivered.
Which US states your grants reach
US grants placed by each grantee’s ZIP, which can differ from where services are actually delivered. Need from public data — U.S. Census/ACS, CDC PLACES, Eviction Lab, USDA — shown as context about the area, never attributed to your giving.
Who you back again
Which organizations you funded more than once, and which you funded a single time. Each grantee is matched to its own filings.
And the relationships you keep tend to grow: grantees you re-up on have seen median revenue of +24% since the first grant, against -8% for the ones you funded once.
27 repeat relationships — 10 still active in FY2025, 17 since wound down; 7 grantees were first funded in FY2025 (too recent to call).
How the two cohorts compare
Organizations
Total granted
Median revenue growth · since first grant
Still filing today
New vs renewed · share of each year
In FY2025, 64% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $49k went to new ones.
Where new relationships form · theme of each grantee’s first grant
First-time = a grantee’s first year in your filing window; renewed = funded in an earlier year too. As a portfolio matures the renewed share naturally climbs — once funded, an org stays “renewable” — so the signal is the years that buck it (a new-grantee intake wave). The earliest year is left-censored: relationships that predate the data read as “new.” Theme is the grantee’s IRS cause.
Backed again, and grew
- UOUniversity of Michigan8× · 2017–2025 · $171k · revenue +202% · 33% of their budget
- NPNORTH PARK UNIVERSITY5× · 2018–2025 · $105k · revenue +9%
- KFKISHWAUKEE FAMILY YMCA5× · 2017–2021 · $40k · revenue +0%
Funded once
- BSBOY SCOUTS OF AMERICAone grant, 2021 · $10k
- NKNORTHWESTERN KISHWAUKEE HEALTH FNDNone grant, 2022 · $10k
- NMNORTHWESTERN MEMORIAL FOUNDATIONone grant, 2023 · $10k
Repeat = funded in two or more distinct years; growth and survival are read from each grantee’s own subsequent IRS filings.
The map has a center of gravity: the average direction from the rest of the sector toward the organizations the foundation funds — the shape of its giving. Scoring every nonprofit along that direction surfaces the ones that look most like the portfolio. These are the closest matchesthat aren’t grantees — a resemblance in what they say they do, not a recommendation.
Saint xavier university, a catholic institution inspired by the heritage of the sisters of mercy, educates persons to search for truth, think critically, communicate effectively and serve wisely and compassionately in support of human…
Engage actively and continuously in medical research, education and training in the practice of medicine in conjunction with the department of family medicine of the indiana university school of medicine and indiana university…
Provide post-secondary education leading to a baccalaureate degree. Program service expenditures are made in conjunction with the operation of a liberal arts college spread over 107 acres with approximately 63 educational and support…
The Foundation, a 501(c)(3) charitable organization, is an independent and separate nonprofit entity from the University of Illinois. Our mission is to encourage and administer private gifts and serve the UI System by working closely with…
NORTHWEST COMMUNITY HEALTHCARE follows the mission of Endeavor Health. The mission of Endeavor Health is to "help everyone in our communities be their best." Central to this mission is a commitment to providing clinical programs and…
The elmhurst memorial healthcare group follows the mission of endeavor health (f/k/a ns-ee holdings). the mission of endeavor health is to "help everyone in our communities be their best." central to this mission is a commitment to…
Edward Hospital follows the mission of Endeavor Health to "help everyone in our communities be their best."
Edward-Elmhurst Healthcare follows the mission of Endeavor Health to "help everyone in our communities be their best."
The nmu foundation will establish and foster relationships to generate resources that benefit the strategic goals of northern michigan university.
See schedule o.we are inspired by the ideals of our founder who, in 1896, emphasized respect for all people and ideas, who honored knowledge with practice, progress and the common good. our historical commitment to experiential learning…
The mission of Taylor University is to develop servant-leaders marked with a passion to minister Christ's redemptive love, grace, and truth to a world in need.
The missouri western state university foundation is a not-for-profit charitable organization that functions solely to support the mission of missouri western state university, as stated in the university's mission statement. the foundation…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Dekalb County Community Foundation and the most unlike its peers is University of Michigan. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
Your grantees are a median of 51 years old; the field is 20. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 18% startups (under 5 years old) — 5% of your grantees by number, and just 5% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 0.0% lost their exemption, against 12% of the field you don’t fund.
Age = years since IRS exemption (a founding proxy). “Closed” = auto-revocation for 3 years of non-filing — a floor on closure, not proof, and bigger established orgs lapse least. Association, not causation.
17 grantees tracked through their own filings, 2017–2025.
Each one resolved to its own IRS returns and tracked year by year — your grant beside their revenue from every source. Association, dated; never a causal claim.
Counted here: distinct organizations you funded across 2017–2025, not grant rows in a single year — so this will not match the grant count on the cover. 17 of the 48 grantees resolved in that span have returns of their own we could reconcile; the rest are funded organizations whose filings we could not track year by year.
Where your money sits — by cause, then by grantee
Each org by its size and your share of it — top-left is where you’re load-bearing
Go grantee by grantee — a decade per org, and how each moved after you funded them
A decade per grantee — revenue shaded, your grants as bars, all rows on one timeline.
- Who funds University of Michigan ↗
- Who funds DEKALB COUNTY COMMUNITY FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds NORTH PARK UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds KISHWAUKEE FAMILY YMCA ↗
- Who funds Legacy Connections ↗
- Who funds Phi Delta Theta Foundation ↗
- Who funds SYCAMORE EDUCATION FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds DePauw University ↗
- Who funds Swedish Covenant Health ↗
- Who funds BRING ON THE MUSIC INC ↗
- Who funds STEPHEN SILLER TUNNEL TO TOWERS FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds Sycamore Sports Boosters ↗
- Who funds KISHWAUKEE COLLEGE FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds Eisenhower Medical Center ↗
- Who funds GOODFELLOWS OF DEKALBSYCAMORE INC ↗
The grantmakers whose grantees overlap with yours far more than size alone predicts. Each orbits closer the stronger the alignment; the arcs between them show where they also fund each other. Here it reads as a tightly interlocked camp — most of these funders back each other's grantees too.
Open a dossier: Dekalb County Community Foundation · George E& Betty Bdutton Foundation · Douglas C & Lynn M Roberts Family Foundation · Ideal Industries Foundation · Northwestern Memorial HealthCare Group · The Chicago Community Trust · Raymond James Charitable Endowment Fund · Charities Aid Foundation America · Natl Christian Charitable Fdn Inc · The Blackbaud Giving Fund · Morgan Stanley Global Impact Funding Trust Inc · American Endowment Foundation
Affinity is a Gamma-Poisson posterior co-funding rate, re-centered on the typical rate, so thin evidence shrinks toward no signal. A research starting point: overlap is association, not proof of shared intent.
Government reliance of your grantees
Every dot is one organization Bickner Family Foundation funds. Left–right is the share of its income from government; up–down is the share from you. Bigger dots raise more. Filter to federal or a single department — and drag the year to watch it move.
- Shriners Hospitals for Children — 0% of income from government
Government income is each org’s traced federal awards (USASpending — grants and contracts) plus state payments (open checkbooks) as a share of its total revenue (IRS Form 990); the self-reported government-grant line (990 line 1e) is carried for cross-check: a grantee that reports government grants we could not trace to a source is left off the chart rather than shown as receiving none. An association, not a claim that your grant caused the public funding. Coverage is precision-first — a floor, not a census; state records exist for 9 states, so a grantee outside them shows no state figure (dimmed) rather than a false zero. Federal award amounts are obligations, which can span years, so a single-year share is indicative. 990 filings lag 12–24 months.